PURE ONE Mi, Palm-sized Portable DAB/FM Radio - Black (discontinued by manufacturer)

Product Information

Pure Evoke Play is a portable, battery-powered music system that will happily accompany you all day long: From your al-fresco breakfast to a picnic in the park or a barbecue on the sports field - you can use anything from a DAB radio or FM receiver to Spotify Connect or Bluetooth Speaker for your smartphone to prove that the best playlists are yours. And even if they aren’t, the Pure Evoke Play, our compact sound marvel, will play along anyway. We make sure to test each model in a range of environments and against its chief competitors too, so you can be sure that the product will work just as well in your home, in whichever spot you've chosen to put it. We live with these radios in our homes to make sure that the performances are consistent, and we don't finalize our testing until we are certain of the sound quality. Battery power supply uses six C (R14) batteries or ChargePAK™ (not supplied). At normal listening levels alkaline batteries provide approximately 35 hours, and ChargePAK provides approximately 20 hours of portable DAB listening. If you haven't experienced DAB yet, you're in for a treat: station selection by name, scrolling text display, all stations tuned-in at the touch of a button and crisp, clear, digital sound. And there's more listening choice too; in many areas up to twice as many stations are available on DAB as are available on FM.

Reception of DAB and FM radio stations is comparable to other portable radios we have tested. The radio struggled to receive Times Radio in our location, but this is the same with radios we’ve tested from Roberts and Sony. Sometimes FM stations can sound distorted as it attempts to receive the station in stereo. An option in the menu allows for ‘forced mono’ which may help with weaker stations. Digital radio station list on the Pure Elan One The Pure One has a mini-USB port to support software updates. The USB port cannot be used for MP3 player connectivity. A standard USB 2.0 to USB-mini lead (not supplied) can be used to connect to a PC for software upgrades – a suitable USB connectivity lead is available from Maplin. The Menu button opens the various options which are relevant to the current mode. The large display makes these quite easy to browse and alter. Personally I'd rather have something that's got a few buttons on it so I can select stations manually so I get the station I actually want! The Pure Elan One has some welcome improvements over the Pure One Mi range. A larger full colour screen, a rotary knob for the volume and battery and mains power options are all useful updates. Compared to other budget radios the less shiny plastic finish makes it feel like a more premium product.

Features and setup

A practical button layout and large vibrant display makes operating Elan One a pleasurable experience. Browsing menus, selecting stations and adjusting settings is simple and intuitive.

And if that was not enough, the signal can transmit additional information such as artist, song title, album cover and even videos. 80% less energy consumption for improved signal reception is another advantage. The Pure One supports Intellitext, for on-demand access to broadcast scrolling text information from radio stations, as well as textSCAN for better control of radio text.

DAB/DAB+ radio advantages in a nutshell:

Bear in mind though that the volume and scale of sound are necessarily limited. It performs very well given its form factor, but you’re expecting too much if you want it to fill a room with lush sound or power a party. It asserts its presence in the mid-range – there’s not masses of refined high-end detail (which the DAB signal often doesn’t supply anyway) or much of a low-end bassy thump. I do use VRadio with a Google speaker in the kitchen, which works well. I could buy an internet radio again but they seem to have too many problems. I guess I'm old fashioned and would like something that's a bit more like a radio! The Pure One has 20 radio station presets, which can be used for storing either DAB or FM stations as required.